EU Council Quietly Adopts ACTA, By Hiding It In An Agriculture And Fisheries Meeting

from the hoped-we-wouldn't-notice dept

At the end of last week, the Council of the European Union – which is where national ministers from each EU country meet to adopt laws and coordinate policies – had a meeting. A group of some 40 ministers for agriculture and fisheries signed off on a range of important matters, including:

Total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas for 2012
Fishing opportunities for 2012 in the Black Sea
Authorisation of four genetically modified varieties
Aid for processed citrus fruit
Welfare of animals during transport
Vaccination against bluetongue
Excess CO2 emissions from new cars
Temporary reception of certain Palestinians

Actually, there was another item, but from its penultimate position on the agenda it was clearly not really regarded as very important, and was just waved through. Here's how the official press release (pdf) reported it:

The Council adopted a decision authorising the signing of an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) with Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.

ACTA is aimed at establishing an international framework to improve the enforcement of intellectual property right laws and create improved international standards for actions against large-scale infringements of intellectual property. Negotiations were concluded in November 2010.

So, continuing the tradition of denying European citizens any opportunity to offer their views on ACTA, the Council of national ministers employed the shabby trick of pushing the treaty through by adopting it without debate at a meeting whose main business had nothing to do with international trade.

Similarly, ACTA will now be passed to the European Parliament for a vote. Although there have been no indications that it will be thrown out there, the same was true of the software patents session, which was expected to approve the measure. One thing is for sure: there is going to be plenty of lobbying for and against ACTA between now and whenever that final vote takes place.

The EU and Software patents

Speaking of the EU and software patents I hope everyone interested in this matter is following the news at http://www.unitary-patent.eu/ (a site run by french free/libre software organization April).

The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) will vote tomorrow about how to move forward with the new unitary patent. There are some amendments that clarifies that software should not be possible to patent. Here is an overview and contact info for members of the parliament who can influence the matter.

Consent of the governed?

It is more and more apparent in this world, that our governments do not derive their power from the people. They only present the illusion of serving the public wherein fact we are servants of the government. How we have been lulled to sleep while this happened I don't know. It is time that people wake up to what is going on in their governments. If they were truly serving the people, we would have transparency, we would have debate, we would not have laws forged in back rooms with access granted only to corporate interests.

Re: The EU and Software patents

Btw. I really recommend this post (in Swedish so please run it through some machine translation) by Henrik Alexandersson an assistant to MEP Christian Engström.

The report on ACTA by the Parliament's Legal Service has been classified but the committee session tomorrow (incidentally the same session as for the the unitary patent mentioned above) where it is to be discussed is open. This means that those with critical questions about the classified document will not be able to make their voices heard while the ACTA proponents can pretend that there are no objections. And they wonder why people don't have more confidence in the EU...

Re:

The Floor 13 organization is not a benevolent one and players will need to do some rather unpleasant things to ensure that the democratic machine runs smoothly. Examples of activities include: searching and looting people’s homes, calling in commando units for heavy assault purposes, wire-tapping and trailing people without bothering to go through legal channels, discrediting notable people through the media and infiltrating established organizations. At times, you might even need to detain citizens and torture them (the torture bits can get rather graphic at times, though it's doled out through a text report), or even assassinate troublesome proles (one of the few political policy games, along with Shadow President and CyberJudas, to allow for such an activity).

Re: Re: Re: Re: Consent of the governed?

A new dark age...

Any time the government has to sneak something in, hidden in something else (not to mention stuff named incorrectly to hide the truth of what it is really about), it should tell you that it should not be passed. It's time people said "This behaviour is not acceptable." Then do something about it.

The government is supposed to work for the people, not against the people. If it doesn't soon lead to a modern revolution, then the people are simply accepting the return to slavery and serfdom. Corporations are the new king, and we are the peasants.

Re: Re: Re: Consent of the governed?

actually, it is capitalism in its final state. in Capitalism the acquisition and accumulation of wealth reigns supreme and that means pure capitalism will tend to reach absolute monopolies.

What you think of is a free market economy. If we had that monopolies would not be easy to achieve, because disruptive developments could not be regulated away in favor of the old business models.

The fact that governments are now propping up companies whose business models have been rendered obsolete by new disruptive technologies to perpetuate old monopolies and the fact that the same governments are essentially backing widescale fraud in the finance industries for essentially the same reasons tells me that it is in fact Capitalism that is out of control and the governments have been degraded to servants of the corporations

The EU bureaucracy and some of it's tamed politicians has been out of control for decades.

Remember, this is the bright lot that decided to legislate the curvature of bananas.

That such a curvature can only be attained by genetic modification (fast way) instead of breeding (that form of geneitic modification takes YEARS and we just can't wait!!!) doesn't seem to have occured to a bunch that is death on GMO foods but now all the bananas in Europe are genetically modifified.

That this is a classic example of circular thinking leading to a circular outcome, well at least curved one, is just too ironic to contemplate. ;-)

(To be honest I don't know if that curvature thing went through but knowing Eurocrats it did.)

Re: Re: Re: Consent of the governed?

You are right in a way. I have to add that neither capitalism nor communism haven't yet be ruled by the book. This is just a form as it exist like Soviet Russia was for the communism. In this case governments have power/duty (if the will) to protect their people.